AIDS Services for the Monadnock Region has been banned from the Monadnock School District after parents and school board members objected to the distribution of "safe sex kits" to students following a presentation in December.
School board member Bruce Barlow said AIDS Services overstepped its bounds by offering flavored lubricant and candy in the kits, when the school administration believed only condoms were being handed out.
"When the decision was made to include strawberry-flavored lube in that bag, all common sense left the room," said Barlow. "You can't hand something like that to a 14-year-old boy and expect him to respond to it as an adult would."
The 14-year-old would probably pull out the lubricant and laugh at it while with his friends. Granted, there were a lot of mistakes here. The school administration and the AIDS services group should have checked with each other as to what was going into the kits and there should have been some kind of opt-out policy.
But to flip out over the fact that the safe sex kits contained candy and lubricant seems to be a bit too much for me. The implication seems to be that the candy is "enticing" students to take the kits, but so what if it did? It certainly doesn't mean that the candy will be enticing students to have sex.
And as for the lubricant - flavored lubricant seems to be a bit much, but let's show a bit of common sense here. What's wrong with including lubricant in safe sex kits? What's the point of distributing safe sex kits if you aren't going to include all of the necessary things to ensure safe sex?
This situation would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
2 comments:
I may be some stinking liberal communist homosexual atheist marxist socialist, but I think the whole controversy is beyond nonsense. We're talking about high school kids here - research shows that on average by graduation, between 2/3 and 3/4 of them will be sexually active. Information about safe sex doesn't entice kids to have sex and it doesn't make them think of sex- they're already thinking about sex. They're already interested. And in my experience working with kids, they already know things like condom and lube exist, they don't know how to use them or where to get them - they also know the need them.
Teaching young people how to protect themselves from HIV and AIDS is a health care issue and a human rights issue. Parents who want to keep their kids ignorant of the facts of sex are doing their children a grave disserve.
I'm gay and have 4 children. While I wouldn't flip out over this issue, I would be irked that the school didn't know & didn't let me know what was going to be in the kit.
As a parent it is my responsibility to create an environment in which my kids feel comfortable (or as comfortable as any teen can feel) about asking me questions & knowing they won't receive condemnation.
I doubt the organization went into much detail about lubricants - purpose, use, etc. I'd want to know that lubricant was included in the kit so that I could start a dialogue about it.
As a parent, I don't have the desire to regulate what programs the school offers or limit what's included in a safe sex kit, but I would like to be notified of what's in the kit simply so that I'm prepared for any questions or could use the opportunity to initiate a conversation with my kid.
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